Hanging out and Hiking in Florida

Tuesday – February 7, 2023

We’re getting in the habit of sleeping-in on some days. For me, being accustomed to arising somewhere between 4:30 and 6:00 every day, staying in bed until after 8 is an adjustment but I like it; sometimes. Today was one of those days. Not much on the agenda today but I was hoping to get the bikes ready in the event an opportunity to ride materialized. They were still on the bike mount at the back of the trailer since leaving Southwick, protected with a nylon bike cover that we thought would never make it out of Massachusetts. To our surprise, the cover is still in good shape except for a small tear near one of the grommets. The bikes are a little dirty from the drive and, of course, the tires need air. I had bought a small compressor to keep the truck and trailer tires inflated properly, as well as, the bike tires. It has an adapter for Presta valve and, although I was able to get Mag’s tires inflated to the proper pressure, I had difficulty getting the adapter connected on my bike and ended up blowing one of the tubes. It made a loud bang and my right ear rang for a little bit but no other injuries to report at this time. No bike ride for now until I find a bike shop with the correct size tube.

Across the way we were watching a gentleman wash an RV similar to ours. A pickup truck and trailer contains all the equipment and supplies. He worked for a few hours and did a very nice job. When he was nearing completion, I approached him and asked if he could provided a price to wash ours. His rate seemed reasonable and we came to an agreement now we just need to pick a date. The trailer has gotten dirty from all the weather and driving since Southwick; we want to have it washed before we start the next leg that will begin our return north.

Wednesday – February 8, 2023

There are a number of parks in the area and we have decided to hike within Point Washington State Forrest. It has a number of trails and chose to combine the Yellow Trail and Red Trial for a 6 mile hike. The trails are sandy with some hard packed and some loose but, mostly hard packed with lots of Long Leaf Pines, scrub brush (that’s what I’m calling it), some grass and, I did spot a Cactus plant that I wasn’t expecting. Not sure how prevalent Cacti are in North Central Florida or, all Florida for that matter, but I did spot one. I believe it was a Prickly Pear. I wish I had taken a picture. If forced, I’m prepared to hike back to the exact spot. We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife but we did see evidence of wildlife by the tracks they left behind; deer, rabbit, and what we thought were racoon tracks. There was a few spots on the trail where we crossed over small bridges and a couple where the trail was flooded and we had to go off the trail a short stretch to avoid the water. The altitude gain was less than 75′ throughout the entire hike so, it’s pretty flat. The trail crosses through the forest on a path but mostly we were walking on a “road.” A couple of times when we were on the road, we missed turns back onto the path but the mapping was very good and getting back on track was easy. The total mileage on the All Trails App showed 6.24 miles in a time of 1 hour 59 minutes, about 19 minutes/mile or, 3.15 miles/hour; a pretty good clip for us. The trail is located at the southern end of Walton County and, at our closest point we were about 1.25 miles from the Gulf. On the return drive, we had to cross Choctawhatchee Bay along a causeway and short bridge (~3.19 mi.). Earlier in the week we witnessed a beautiful sunset when crossing and thought we’d try to stop to get a photo but we were about 10 minutes late. We decided to try another time.